Insulation



25, 1945. AB. RICHARDS ETAL 2,391,515

INSULATION Filed March 29, 1943 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 En BY C! ATTORNEYS.

Dec. 25, 1945.

A. RICHARDS ET AL INSULATION 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed March 29, 1943 mwmw m5 2. ZQH ZEQ n FREQUENCY I N QPS A. B. Richards H. S. Afherfon INVENTORS. c c

,ll/ rneqs of the particular sample and the results Pumas Dec. 25, 1945 NIT S A msnm'non Alvin n. Richards, Dearborn, and Harold s. Atherton, Detroit, Miela, assignors to Ford Motor Company, Dear-born,

I tion of Delaware Mleln, a corpora- Application March 2a, 194:, Serial No. mm 3 Claims.' (01, 154-28) This invention relates to the soundproofing of vehicles by. insulation; and; more particularly,

insulation of airframe structures in which the weight of the soundproofing material required is an item of considerable moment.

While all materials, metallic or nonmetallic, prevent transmission of sound at least in proportion to'their weight, the last factor becomes of considerable importance when the soundproofing of aircraft is considered. It, therefore, becomes necessary o evolve combinations for materials which will exceed the theoreticalweight law so far as nontransmission is concerned. It

is apparent thatby using a sufiicient mass of material, a virtually complete nontransmission would be obtainable, but at the same time the weight of the structure would be increased considerably. It is, therefore, desirable to evolve a construction which gives a maximum soundproofing effect with the minimum compatible weight. At the same time, the damping of vibrations is a factor as well as thepreventio'n of noise transmission and any suitable structure must be de- I igned with these two considerations in mind.

The materials available for use are well known and their individual efiiciency has been determined experimentally. Similarly, certain combl-' nations of these materials, particularly chosen for one'quality' or another, are in use at the present time in aircraft. However, ,giving all due consideration to the weight of the materials used, the efiiciency obtained to date has not been satisfactory.

It is, therefore, an object of this invention to devise a method of insulation which, on a comparative weight basis, gives results far exceeding, both as to vibration damping and sound transmission, any soundproofing heretofore available. Another object of the invention is to devise a method of assembling insulating material which contributes, in large part, to increase the soundproofing advantage of the particular material. Yet another object is to devise a soundproofing structure which for its weight far exceeds in emciency those heretofore used.

- Before proceeding with a specific description of an invention, it will be wellto consider the methods of rating employed to determine efficiency. As noted above, the theoretical value of a given soundproofing can be computed as a function of its weight and a straight line attenuation curve plotted against logarithmic sound frequencies. Then tests may be run at selected frequencies to determine the'actual attenuation characteristics against the theoretical weight line This gives a very clear comparison of soundattenuation both as'-'between various samples and between these samples and the theoretical weight law character.

istic; 'Other tests have been developed to deter mine the comparative damping oi. vibration-on the basis of what is known as the thick plate rating. In this procedure, the unit of measure is the number of seconds required to disseminate a sound of predetermined characteristics in a thick steel plate to which the insulation has been secured; and, as an illustration, five seconds or less may be considered as a satisfactory figure, 7

while materials having inferior damping characteristics may range well above 100 seconds.

The actual mechanics of these tests form no part of the invention but the techniques employed are known to workers in the art. Therefore, in considering the advantages of various common treatments, reference will be had principally to the attenuation expressed in decibels and the thick plate ratings as determined by the number applied. From these may be deduced a theoretical efiiciency covering both characteristics and serving as an over-all comparison between different materials.

With these and other objects in view, the invention consists in the arrangement, construction and combination of the various parts of the improved device and the steps of the method followed therein, as described in the specification,

claimed in the claims, and illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which:

Fig. 1 is a perspective viewof a method of attaching a fiber batt or pad to the interior of an aircraft fuselage skin.

Fig. 2 shows the random pattern ofadhesive customarily usedfin' attaching the batt to the-skin.

Fig. 3 is a perspective view showing. the application of adhesive to the batt with the use of veillnz sp ay gun.

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of the batt showing adhesive adhering thereto. I

Fig. '5 is an illustrative attenuation curve as determined for the particular construction chosen. Figs. 6 and 7 are plan views of'the curtain and skin insulation, respectively, successive layers 7 thereof being broken away from left to right.

plotted skin insulation.

Fig. 8 is the transverse section through the curtain and skin insulation taken as indicated in the line 8-8 of l igs.'6 and 'l and showing the insulating elements in assembled relation.

7 Fig. 9 is a transverse section on an enlarged scale of the corrugated septum employed in the cotton, felt, and other materials.

Referring first toFlgs. 5, 6 and 8,- the reference character l indicates the metal fuselage skin and H the metal longerons or stringers to which the skin .III is attached. In contact with the inner surface of the skin I0 and substantially the same depth as the stringers II, is the skin insulation generally designated as l2 which comprises a batt or pad l3 adhesively secured to the skin Ill, an intervening septum l4 and an inner batt l5. Suitably suspended inwardly of the skin insulation i2 is the curtain insulation it which comprises inner and outer fabric cloth covers l1 and I8 and the certain batt l9.

Figs. 1 through 4 show the preferred method of attaching the skin batt I: to the metallic skin III by the use of randomly distributed adhesive material 20. This is applied either to the skins inner surface, as indicated in Fig. 1, or to the surface of the batt, as shown in Fig. 3, with a spray gun 2| having a veiling attachment by means of which the adhesive material vor cement is broken up and projected in the form of short discontinuous strings, as shown-in Fig. 2, which gives a. reticulated or rardom net-like zone of attachment between the contacting surfaces of the skin batt and skin. The relative proportions of the adhesive and nonadhesive zones are shown in these "figures and for bestresults, the proportion should be in the neighborhood of 10 to 20 per cent and the weight of the cement should not exceed 40 per cent of the weight of the continuous coating usually used in securing insulating batts.

After the.cement, usually rubber base or like ina- 'terial, is sprayed on the batt or skin as may be most convenient, these elements are brought into position and lightly pressed together, which is sufficient to complete the cement bond therebetween.

The septum is then fitted between the stringers II- and adhesively secured at intervals to the inner-surface 22 of the skin batt 13. As shown in Fig. 9, the septum l4 isiformed from corrugated paper, the cement by which it' is secured to the v batts on either side being applied as. at 23 along the extending apices'of the corrugations. This insures the maintenance of spaced voids between the batt and septum, yet limits the extent of these voids. uniformly throughout the structure. As

will be observed in Fig. 7, the corrugations run.

transversely of the stringers to prevent sagging of the skin insulation. The inner batt i5 is similarly secured to the outer. surface of the septum to complete the skin insulation.

The curtain insulation I6 is suspended inwardly of the skin insulation I2 and in the present example, has its outer surface 28 spaced about two and one-half inches from the skin Ill. The preferred construction has the outer cover l8 made of aluminum-coated cloth and the inner cover ll of trim cloth enclosing the batt l9. While the curtain assembly may, in some instances, be omitted, its'contribution to soundproof efliciency is considerable and in addition it performs the function of trimming the interior of the ship.

The batts used in the various assemblies may be formed from a number of materials such as kapok (which is sold under a number of proprietar names and in different forms), rock wool, The present experiments indicate that kapok filling 26 between the quilted gauze sheets 21 (Fig. 4) is to be preferred on the grounds of efliciency, durability, and economy.

A variation of the manner-of attachment of the skin batt ii to the skin ll is shown in Fi 7-.

In place of applying the cement with a veiling gun, it may be applied in spaced strips 24 between the elements. In other respects, the construction, proportions and weight ratios are simi- 5 lar to those resulting from use of the sprayedond, a septum is interposed between two batts comprising a skin insulation assembly, the septum being corrugated in form and being inter- 'mittently attached to the batts on either face, leaving a large portion of adjoining areas free of actual contact. When these two conditions are met, attenuation and damping characteristics are obtained far superior 'to those ordinarily expected from other materials of the same weight or, indeed, of the same physical structure otherwise applied. As an example of this, Fig. 5 shows atypical attenuation curve'in which the 25 ordinate shows the sound attenuation through the sample in decibels at the various sound frequencies'indicated by the abscissa. The straight line 25 indicatesthe computed weight law attenuation and the irregular line 28 th actual attenu- =30 ation as observed in tests. It is desirable, of

course, that the attenuation lines he as near the bottom of the graph aspossible'; and, if the actual value of the sample is to exceed the theoretic, the line 28 must be beneath the line 25. In the 3 present instance, it will be noted that at frequencies above a thousand cycles per second (and it is in this range which soundproofing is particularly to be 'desired) the actual test results far surpass those predicted by the weight law. Moreover, they also surpass'those of other assemblies of light weight subjected to'the same conditions of tests. The weight of the assembly shown is approximately .338 pound per square foot and when the area to be soundproofed is considered, it is at once apparent that attenuation efliciency as opposed to added weight is to be obtained if at all possible. In this respect the present method of soundproofing is particularly advantageous since it is not only most eflective with sounds of higher frequencies but the weight required for desired attenuation is reduced accordingly. Even more striking is the improved thick plate rating obtainable with this type of construction, varying from 3 to 5. This is to be compared with the conventional soundproofing assemblies in which the ratings are as high as 250.

Some changes may be made in the various elements of this invention and steps in the method 00 of. use thereof without departing from the spirit of the invention and it is the intention to claim such changes as may reasonably be included within the scope thereof.

The invention claimed'is:

1. A laminated soundproofing assembly designed to be used in connection with a thin vibratile structural plate, comprising a batt of soft loose fibrous material secured between textile webs having one surface adhesively secured to 7 the inner surface of said plate, an impervious 'septum having one surface adhesively secured to the other surface of said butt, and a second batt' secured to the other face of said septum, the

3. A laminated soundproofing assembly to be used in conjunction with a thinvibratile structural plate, comprising, a butt of soft loose fibrous material secured between textile webs having one face adhesively secured to the inner surface of said plate, said adhesive so securing said batt and said plate together being distributed therebetween in thin vermicular filaments randomly disposed to form irregularly reticulated adhesive areas.

ALVIN B. RICHARDS. HAROLD S. ATHERTON. 

